Um Maluco no Golfe

My favorite Adam Sandler movie.

I just think it aligns perfectly with his comic persona. He seems to fit this character perfectly. It's the kind of adolescent silliness that I gravitate toward. I can't tell you how happy I was that my 9 year-old seemed to approve ("That was a very good movie"). And she's way more mature than her old man is.

It's not just the character of Happy Gilmore that's memorable here, but also Shooter McGavin, and Christopher McDonald deserves credit for making the entitled jackass a solid villain. Same for Carl Weathers, and you would think he'd be slumming it here, but he sure doesn't show it.

Best of all? Out-of-Nowhere Bob Barker; secure enough in his celebrity to openly parody it with a free-for-all fistfight.

Tell me "The Price is Wrong, b***h!" isn't one of Sandler's best lines.

Recipe for a prime Adam Sandler comedy: dream up a ridiculous, one-note concept, plaster it with silly side gags, stretch the whole thing to fill ninety minutes and... somehow succeed in spite of yourself. There's no way this rudimentary formula should work so well, but here's Exhibit B, and I'm still laughing.

Sandler in the mid-90s was a roiling ocean of slapstick brilliance, totally superficial and meaningless but all the more endearing for it. Here, of course, he's the brainless hockey player turned golf pro, capable of driving the green on a par five but allergic to any semblance of a short game. It's a role catered to his strengths - quick temper tantrums, wacky fight scenes, childish infatuations - and he still plays them well. All the fleeting extraneous bits land, too, from Carl Weathers's absurdly long false hand to Lee Trevino's frequent, often wordless, cameos to Christopher McDonald's delicious overacting as the stuck-up front runner, Shooter McGavin.

It doesn't look great (actually, the budget must've been pretty tight) but that's hardly the point. This one remains a simple dose of energetic fun, twenty-odd years later.

This film is the one that introduced me to one of my favorite actors, Adam Sandler. His movies are mostly hit-or-miss gag machines, but this is one of his movies in which nearly every gag works. I almost miss the old Adam Sandler. The old Adam Sandler character would be a man who acts nice, but turns violent and angry when he doesn't get his way. Now he plays a mild-mannered every-man who makes little wisecracks. Not that the latter isn't funny, but the former is what he'll always be remembered for, and this is a perfect example of an Adam Sandler's true comedic side.

Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) is a nearly unlikeable loser who after a strangely traumatic childhood, grew up to be a raving, anti-social lunatic, who happens to be obsessed with hockey. He constantly tries out for hockey teams, and proudly holds two league records (Most time spent in the penalty box, and he was the only person in history to ever take off his skate and try to stab somebody). One day, his girlfriend dumps him, he doesn't make the hockey team, and the IRS repossesses his grandmothers house which he grew up in. Soon, he discovers that he has an incredible talent for golf, with a record breaking long drive. Unwillingly taken under the wing of one-handed former golf pro Chubbs Peterson (Carl Weathers), and becomes a golf sensation due to his long drive, and extremely rude behavior, much to the dismay of the leading tour money winner, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald). A bitter rivalry and a race-against-time ensue, as Happy tries to earn back his grandma's house, and beat Shooter.

Happy Gilmore is a movie that I truly adore, and will always cherish. There are many quotable lines, and hilariously random scenes and/or characters. One of the funniest ones is a cameo by Ben Stiller as a cold-blooded orderly at an old folks home, who treats the citizens like inmates. One of the funniest comic bits in any Adam Sandler movie is the sequence in which Happy gets into a fistfight with Bob Barker, the host of "The Price is Right." For some reason, Bob fails to notice the heckler who's most frequently uttered word never fails to affect Happy's game for the worst.

Another hilarious thing about this movie is how many of the characters in the movie manage to play their parts and keep a straight face, even when Happy is assaulting innocent people for the smallest reasons, and cussing out the golf ball when it won't go "home." Happy is one of a group of quirky characters in the film, but much of the humor comes from the reactions of the serious characters, and/or the extras when Happy does something stupid. One hilarious example of this is when Happy repeatedly screams out every word that can't be said on TV, well... on TV. The overall premise of the film is fun, and the film delivers non-stop laughs. Sit back and enjoy the classic Adam Sandler vehicle. I highly recommend this film, and give it 10/10.

It is proudly rated PG-13 for Language and Comic Sexuality. Sex: 4/10 Violence: 5/10 Swearing: 5/10 Drugs: 2/10

In Happy Gilmore, Sandler plays the part of a determined hockey player who doesn't make the team but soon inadvertently discovers that his hockey skills translate very nicely onto the golf green. Until the point in the film where Happy begins playing golf, most of the laughs come from his misfortune (`Happy Gilmore… I called your name, didn't I?' [eagerly] `No, you didn't.' `Oh, well, better luck next year!!'), but it is the conflictive interaction between himself as a self-proclaimed hockey player and the much more formal and (for lack of a better word) high class game of golf that makes up the majority of the entertainment for the rest of the film.

There is clearly a take on the classic odd-couple comedy structure here, as Sandler's vulgar hockey habits collide with the neatness and formality of the golf green, and for the most part, this comedy scheme works pretty well here. Sandler seems to adopt the character of Happy Gilmore with great relish as he displays violent acts of hilariously misplaced aggression, clearly foreshadowing his similar actions as Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy. Indeed, some of the funniest parts of the film come from his lengthy streams of profanity at the misbehaved ball when it doesn't go where he wants it to go (`PIECE!! OF!! MONKEY *beep*!!').

So you have an undeniably entertaining and amusing character who does undeniably funny things, but it is at the logical level that this film falls on its face. Luckily for the movie and for its fans, this is not the most important element of a movie like this. It's not very likely that a slob like Happy, who doesn't make the hockey team, is going to suddenly find himself bringing in thousands and thousands of dollars left and right, and stick to his plan to buy his grandmother's house back. You would think that, having seen that he can make that much money, he would at least have kept going for a while instead of quitting as soon as he had accumulated enough to buy back the house. A noble cause, obviously, but no red blooded American male on the planet is going to just quit the game because he prefers hockey or he hates his lead opponent. But who cares? Sandler delivers the steady stream of laughs as Gilmore with such skill that the comedy of the film far overshadows any such imperfections.

Gilmore himself seems to be a bit overly violent in scenes where it doesn't seem entirely necessary, and there is clearly some overdone product placement, but it doesn't take away from the rest of the film. Mike Meyers made brilliant use of product placement in Wayne's World in such ways that added hugely to the comedy of the film (although he tripped over this technique in Austin Powers 2, when he made it massively over-emphasized and stonily unamusing), and the excessive violence of the Gilmore character is justified (although just barely) by the fact that his imperfect characteristics make his efforts (or lack thereof) to fit in with professional golfers even more amusing. As the pros stand around sipping expensive wine and discussing their respective accomplishments, Happy walks in asking where the pinball machine and the keg are. They want fame and recognition, he wants money and beer (and Virginia, the sexy reporter who fills the role of the obligatory love interest in the typical Sandler film).

There are a lot of scenes in Happy Gilmore that, as much as I personally enjoy the movie, simply fall flat (many of which involve the homeless guy who Happy employs as his caddie, or the nutcase that Shooter McGavin employs to destroy Gilmore's chances of winning the tournament, or anything involving Chubbs' prosthetic hand) but the film succeeds where it is supposed to. Sandler presents Gilmore as a strangely likeable character, despite all of his destructive habits, and the film is peppered with other notable performances, not the least of which are by Carl Weathers as Chubbs, the former golf pro who takes upon himself the immense task of taming the wild Gilmore, and Christopher MacDonald, in yet another brilliantly hate-able role as the immutable Shooter McGavin.

Happy Gilmore is a comedy from Adam Sandler, which means that you already know what kind of movie that you are going to get here, so don't complain if it turns out to be what you expected. Sandler does not make award-winning films, and chances are he never will, but the comedic value of Happy Gilmore is unquestionable. It is, to sum it up just as briefly as movies like this can be summed up, a perfect example of what I like to call Fast Food Cinema. It's a lot of fun, but there's no nutritional value.

Frustrated ice hockey player Happy Gilmore will never make it into the sport despite his intense hitting strength and aggressive game. When he is seen by ex-golf pro Chubbs Peterson, on a driving range, Happy is offered the chance to enter a golf contest. When his Grandma's house is repossessed, Happy enters in order to make money quickly. However soon it becomes about more than money as pro Shooter McGavin tries to show him up.

Those watching an Adam Sandler comedy usually are prepared for the type of humour that they are about to experience. I know I didn't sit down expecting clever, witty word play or an intricate, playful script that toys with my emotions. No, I knew that I was ready for the man-child's clowning and lots of dumb, silly jokes. So I actually quite enjoyed my time spent watching this film as I knew what I was getting into. The plot is simply dumb but of course that's the point! The fun is supposed to be in watching Happy getting where he's going rather than wondering if he'll come out on top or not.

The jokes are pretty run of the mill for Sandler. They all have a certain quality that will raise a vague smile often enough to enjoy, but doesn't really ever make you laugh out loud more than a handful of times. Of course for lots of times, Sandler's overacting (or overreacting!) makes things funnier and he does an OK job with the material. The actual role is the same one he always plays and is not hard for him. Guest is better with witty support but Sandler pretty much runs the film without ruining it.

While it didn't totally grab my full attention and have me rolling, it was amusing and light enough not to have to concentrate on – which is what I was looking for on a cold Saturday afternoon. Not really worth checking out if you can't stand Sandler, but neutrals on the subject (such as me) will find it passable enough comedy. Die hard fans will, of course, love it to death but fear not, for a vengeful God awaits them!